


let instinct choose

by x (ordinary)



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4443530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinary/pseuds/x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taro Namatame's life told in shades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. thirteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellixis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellixis/gifts), [Senatsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senatsu/gifts).



> a huge thank you to ellixis for constant enabling, and senatsu for their kindly encouragement!

Taro Namatame is thirteen years old and dreams of a better world.

Laid on the grass of the flood plain, he closes his eyes to the blue sky and instead sees progress: businesses revitalizing (his) Inaba, tourists flocking to the shrine, restaurants and local crafts alike becoming world renowned. He dreams of Inaba becoming as well-loved to outsiders as it is to its residents, transforming into something more than its sleepy self-- but he is young and hopeful, young and foolish, young and younger still.

Taro stands in Yomenaido with shoulders hunched and head ducked low, as if by compressing himself into a box he could become a ghost. Carefully, he fingers the pages of a history book he cannot afford, its pages new and crisp and white. Every week, he reads, and learns of dynasties and emperors, court politics and espionage. He finds them intriguing-- a world built on order is the most fascinating to behold-- but it’s not quite enough to slake his thirst.

It’s not until he encounters stories about the modern municipal that something sparks, and he knows that makes him weird. Other kids dream of being sports stars or growing rich and famous. Taro wants to do good, get in wrist-deep in policies until he can make a difference.

What if, he thinks. What if he could make things better simply by trying to?

As always, Yomenaido’s attendant ushers him out at closing time, leaving him only a few moments to get enough tofu to bring home to his parents, a well-wishing from the matron of Marukyu in his pocket.

 

 


	2. seventeen

Taro Namatame is seventeen years old, and the winter is a biting one. He stomps off snow in the doorway, fresh okonomiyaki in hand. Steam still rises from the box, warm and inviting. The house is quiet, only his mother is home. His father is still at work, turning long hours at a carpentry shop that’s doomed to close in two years time.

But that day still seems so far away: the idea of failure unthinkable, the future obscured by the fog of the unknown. For now, Taro sits with his mother and eats, telling her about student council. About how he didn’t make president but that’s okay, being the treasurer is a fine position. About how he can try again for his final year, hope in his hands and his hand on display, every card shown to the world.

In between bites, his mother listens and rearranges pink roses, practicing new designs for the next day’s clients. She pulls them this way and that, narrowly avoiding the thorns. Her hands sting when idle: something passed on from mother to son.

Her eyes turn soft at the news, and she pulls away from the makeshift ikebana to lay a hand on his, squeezing tight. His mother has always thought him an odd thing, and both of his parents regarded him with the same kind of fondness you have for a cat that’s not quite yours, but is certainly no one else’s. But Taro knows: she loves him, she doesn’t know how to show it: they are an awkward family.

Delicately, with the restraint of a wild thing tamed, his mother presses chapped lips to his forehead, just above the mole. Once upon a time, she had been fiercer than a lion. How had he ended up so mild mannered?

“Oh, Taro. Work hard, and maybe you can do all these things. But Japan is more than just Inaba; don’t you want to do something bigger?” 

 

 


	3. twenty two

Taro Namatame is twenty two years old, and on the cusp of something wonderful. He has nothing in this world but a fresh diploma in his palm, an internship under his belt, and change in his heart, but that’s okay.

The hour of his life is an early one, the sun still rising, the birds still singing. It is spring, the cherry blossoms still in bloom. There is plenty of time for all of his best laid plans.

Namatame sits in Bookworms, turning the pages of a history book with reverent hands, and he remembers his life through a series of pages and notes scrawled in the margins. Long, bony fingers are careful of its aging spine and yellowed pages.

The road to councilman is a long one, but every step  a long way from Inaba but that’s okay, he’s a long way from Inaba and he wants to make a difference. The possibilities are endless, his trajectory aimed high and almost-infinite. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, he enters the political circuit, a stone not yet eroded by the sands of time.

He has no idea that in fifteen years his life will have stopped, started, and stopped again. 


End file.
